[R.A.P.T.O.R]

What do you guys think would happen if the horus heresy never came to be, the emperor was never entomed in his golden throne because he never died, and none of the primarchs turned traitor. Now in the 41 millenium do u think mankind now with their awsome legions of space marines, wouldv'e dominated all the galaxies by now? I mean, saying that there are no chaos marines because, though the primarchs did seperate, and they were* found by the emperor and they FORMED their legions, just none of them gave in to chaos. eventually chaos died out.

Would mankind be the most diminant species by now?

 

[I am the Monkey King]

This is an easy one. The Imperium of mankind would encompass the entire galaxy, and they would have no foes of any significant threat. The Tau would never have reached their current level of technology as their planet would have been part of the imperium for millenia. The Eldar would either be dead or highly subservient to mankind (or hiding at the edge of the galaxy), the dark eldar would be dead. Orks would mostly be dead, maybe a few scattered remnants in places too worthless to bother conquering and the tyranids and necrons would be quickly suppressed when they showed up.

Nice happy galaxy.

 

[The_Outsider]

That sounds great except for the necrons. Consider that 5 cruiser-class vessels managed to penetrate the martian defences, the entire battlefleet gothic would have a hard time doing it.

The necrons would cull humanity no question, they don't use warp travel (they just fly really really fast) and their technology is superior to all, and with the power of creation at their fingertips they would be unstoppable.

They would pick the imperium apart piecemeal before the imperium's armed force could respond.

In a fight between the necrons and the imperiu, it would be like a second war in the heavens, victory would be decided by wich force has anything left opposed to nothing.

 

[Grephaun]

I don’t really think the Necron would have been a great threat to humanity if the Horus Heresy had never happened. Necrons are only truly vulnerable to one thing, and that’s psychic powers. Were the Emperor still fighting alongside His troops, I think the Necrons would be in serious trouble. Plus, in the time since the Heresy the Emperor would also have finished whatever project He was working on when the Heresy interrupted Him; personally, I think the fluff points towards Him attempting to find a way for humanity to reach the goal the Old Ones intended for us and become the ultimate psychic race in the galaxy. If the Emperor had actually managed to do that in the ten thousand years since the birth of the Imperium, the Necrons wouldn’t stand a chance. We were always intended by the Old Ones to be the ultimate biological anti-Necron weapon, after all.

As for how the rest of the galaxy would look, I agree that most of it would be part of the human Imperium. Chaos would still exist, the Eye of Terror would still be there, and people would still be tempted and turn heretics, but Chaos would have nowhere nearly as much power as it does now. The Eldar might still be around, as would the Orks since they’re simply impossible to get rid off, but the Dark Eldar probably wouldn’t, nor the Tau. The Imperium would have evolved in very different ways, their technology boosted not only by the Mechanicus findings of STCs but also the knowledge held by the Emperor Himself, the only survivor from the Dark Age of Technology when nothing was impossible to humanity. We might as a species have reached our potential for psychic abilities and like the Eldar have come to depend on these powers for our technology and constructions.

Really, it’s impossible to tell what would have happened, but I think it’s fair to say that the Horus Heresy really crippled the Imperium. Without it, humanity could have come a very long way indeed.

~Grephaun.

 

[darkreever]

The only problem to the whole train of thought of no Heresy (the starting point of all of this) would be that it would mean the emperor did not return to terra to begin searching for a way to help humanity reach its ultimate evolutionary goal.

Keep in mind that was the foothold that led half the legions to their current path.

Grephauns outlook on the rest of the galaxy would be the most logical, but there would have been a civil war, or more than one, within the imperium no matter what. Regardless of the Heresy, the Thousand Sons would have been deemed traitors for teir defiance of the emperor. The Night Lords and possibly World Eaters would have been deemed to uncontrollable to remain safe with, and the bickering of the primarchs might have landed a similar Heresy (but during a different time and possibly with different legins on each side...8))

Interesting point though Grephaun, the Heresy did cripple the imperium in many ways.

 

[Visitor Q]

Know one can know for sure obviously but it would be interesting to find out what happened to the lost legions and primarchs.

 

[The_Giant_Mantis]

I'm pretty sure the primachs would still have died.. They do get old, apparently.

But the Emperor would probably have just created some more, over and over again. He seemed to like the patter of tiny superhuman feet.

Okay.. the main problem with the Necrons is that they're invulnerable to most conventional weapons. You can shoot them apart with bolters or chop them with power swords, but they're not going to die.. You can break the necrodermis on a C'tan, and it will just spill out like the big ball of energy it is, then whizz off to respawn in a tomb somewhere. Other than that.. considering the Emperor would probably have an almost limitless army of space marines by then (they wouldn't be taking losses because they wouldn't be fighting as much.. just putting down rebellions and securing the empire) the Imperium could probably handle them militarily.

I'm not sure if the Emperor could kill a C'tan.. He was the undisputed master of the warp, after all, and C'tan fear the warp as one of the few things able to destroy them. I have no doubt the Emperor could defeat a C'tan in personal combat, the challenge would be destroying its essence afterwards.

 

[I am the Monkey King]

I'm pretty sure he could have, but I can't really back that up except that even the Chaos gods feared him and I doubt anyone would say they're less powerful than a C'tan. Oh and since people tend to ask why I say the chaos gods feared him, the second edition codex Imperialis (I know ts old) said that they considered him "a foe they could not reasonably expect to harm and who would not rest until they were destroyed" thus implying he could have, and I've found nothing in newer fluff to contradict this.

 

[ze_poodle]

If the Horus Heresy never happened:

Warhammer would not exist. Humans would be everywhere. End transmission.